things that interest me.

it’s raining outside

It’s 2 AM and it’s raining heavily outside, so apologies in advance if any of the above factors affect the mood of this post. I’m sitting on my bed hammering this post out (so much for proper sleep hygiene, the bed is reserved for only sleep and sex right?), and it’s all over the place so bear with me.

There are conversations, and then there are the 6 AM conversations that happen just because, and make you really THINK.

This blog is always about what I’m thinking about, and what interests me today is a stark realization of the huge difference between KNOWING, and DOING.

In all aspects of life.

It’s very easy to know things; all you have to do is read! In our generation, with the Internet at our disposal, reading up about something just simply requires you to have the interest, have access to Google, and have the attention to read what comes up.

You can actually read about anything: pharmacy, medicine, love, relationships, how to change tires, how to tie a tie, do cats really always fall on their feet (yes, but only if they fallen from at least a certain height!), what is loose leaf tea (I’ve read so much about tea…XD), how to lead a more fulfilling life, how to be happy, who’s a good fantasy basketball pick up, what REALLY happened with the Malaysian flight, who is Taylor Swift singing about now, how to shoot a jump shot, how to cross-over defenders, actually ANYTHING!

Patrick Beverly – I’ve actually been reading a lot about playing good defence lately, and I’m hoping to incorporate it into my game ASAP. Let’s go PharmaBeasts, next semester is our last chance to win a championship!

I read a lot – anyone that knows me knows this. I’m also quite indiscriminate about what I read too, so I read a lot of random things – so overtime, things stick. Yet, I’ve found that I am not very good at translating what I read into actual practice. I mean, this seems obvious, but upon closer introspection, I realize how hard it actually is.

I mean, gosh, if I could translate even 5% of what I read into practice, I’d be a basketball star with the knowledge of journals at my fingertips, and also know how to tie at least 5 different types of knots while effortlessly (and stylishly) wearing my scarf in over 35 different ways.

SCARVES! Please come back winter =(

I’ve read a couple of pretty insightful things recently, and they’ve made me think a lot.

I always ask people how was your day, or what’s new, or update me on your life. But if you really care, or you really want to know someone, then we need to ask them better questions and then really listen to their answers. If you don’t want throwaway answers, then you really can’t ask throwaway questions. I don’t want people to think I’m just asking them questions because I have to or because it’s polite; it’s because I actually want to talk to you, because I care about what you have to say and how that makes you feel.

So after reading this article, I decided to put it into practice. For about a week or so, I carefully watched the questions I asked, and tried to live this philosophy. I got a couple of weird stares, someone asked me why I was asking weird questions, and so a week later I abandoned this one. But the thing is, I truly believe in it – and yet despite reading all about it and reading it several times, I couldn’t put it into practice.

And another one I read, and this one is a HUGE article, absolutely amazing, insightful and bookmarked for ages to come – an article on relationships and life partners:

Please, if I ever tell you anything and you ever decide to follow through, let it be my recommendation for you to read these 2 amazing pieces.

PWETTY PWEASEEEEEE

One thing in these articles that just struck me – I mean it’s pretty obvious, but it’s one of those things people don’t think about usually so that when you read it, it just strikes you so strongly because it’s so true:

A good relationship isn’t about the epic love story or the poetic romanticism or the grand gestures and the cliche lines. It isn’t about the flowers or the amazing trips or the butterflies or the awesome social excursions…

It’s about having lunch together for the 1047th time, it’s about that quiet Sunday night where she watched TV and you read a book, but you were together, on the couch. It’s about getting stuck in a traffic jam on the 401, about the routine good morning texts you both send and receive.

A good relationship is 20,000 Forgettable Wednesdays, together.

There is just so much in these 2 articles, and I absolutely find myself agreeing with their bottom-lines. Yet, even though I KNOW these fallacies, I still find myself unable to get out of them. Why is that?

Even in pharmacy and medicine, I see this disconnect between literature and practice. So there’s a drug, metformin, which is basically the best drug for diabetics, PERIOD.

Who’s a good drug, yes you are!

One of the rare side-effects that pharmacists always counsel on or mention is lactic acidosis (long story short, its basically a build up of lactic acid in the body and it’s pretty bad for your health, you might even die).

Yet, we have learnt that from a meta-analysis on the topic (what is the incidence of lactic acidosis in metformin users) that compared to placebo, metformin actually does not statistically significantly increase your risk of lactic acidosis. That this myth is actually perpetuated by the fact that metformin’s precursor (phenformin) was the one that was actually associated with lactic acidosis, and was pulled off the shelves.

So even though we know this, why do we – as practitioners of evidence-based medicine – continue to remind people of lactic acidosis?

One reason that comes to mind is that it’s the safe thing to do – I mean, what harm is there in adding on an extra complication to our monitoring plan? Or counselling patients on it? Isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?

I have no easy answer for this, but again this is another example of where it’s easy to know what you read, but hard to put it into practice.

I guess the whole point of this post is that I recently read something else that really resonated, and something I also want to put into practice. But at this point, I have these doubts as to whether I can really do it.

Courtesy of reddit:

You are in control of your own happiness. Stop for a second when you feel offended or hurt and ask yourself these questions:

1. Why does this bother me?

2. Was it intentional?

3. Is there a solution?

4. Do I really want to be mad about this?

Then make a CHOICE to ALLOW it to bother you or not, it’s up to you. But don’t waste sweet precious moments of your life. Forgive and forget and you will absolutely be happier.

All we can do is try.

Alfred to Batman: Why do we fall, sir? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.

Music time:

I’ve been moving away from EDM lately – and maybe even trance – and into music like this kind of genre. I’m not exactly sure what genre it is (I think colloquially it’s been referred to as chillstep?), but all I know is the things uploaded by Fluidified – Best Serve Chilled has been just amazing for me, and I can’t stop listening to it.